1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coin mechanism used for a vending machine or the like, and particularly, relates to the coin mechanism having a structure in which the coin inserted when buying a product is temporarily held.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Previously, as the coin mechanism used for the vending machine, the coin mechanism is well known, which has such a structure where a coin of the amount of money corresponding to five hundred yen is returned when a customer performs a return operation of the coin after throwing in a coin of five hundred yen.
However, in this coin mechanism, there has been such a problem that the coin of the amount of money corresponding to five hundred yen is returned even in the case when it has wrongly been judged that a forged coin of five hundred yen is specie and therefore, a large damage is received because of the throwing-in of the forged coin of five hundred yen.
Therefore, in order to solve this problem, a coin mechanism described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-288480 has been proposed.
The basic structure of this coin mechanism is similar to that of the above described conventional coin mechanism. That is, when a coin is inserted for buying a product, first, whether the coin is specie or a forged coin is judged by a coin discriminating device, and furthermore, when it is judged that the coin is specie, the kind of the coin is also discriminated by this coin discriminating device. Then, the coin judged to be a forged coin by the coin discriminating device is returned to the change outlet, and on the other hand, the coin judged to be specie by the coin discriminating device is contained in the coin tube through the coin passage corresponding to each coin.
This coin mechanism is different from the above described conventional coin mechanism in the action of processing the coin in the case where the customer has inserted a coin of five hundred yen.
That is, in the case where the coin discriminating device judges that the coin is a coin of five hundred yen, a temporary holding device performs the holding action, so that this coin of five hundred yen is held in the coin passage. After that, when the customer performs the operation of buying a product (operation of pressing a product select button), the temporary holding device performs the release action, so that the holding state of the coin of five hundred yen is released. This coin of five hundred yen whose holding has been released rolls toward the first distributing device, and is distributed toward the coin tube for five hundred yen by this first distributing device. On the other hand, when the customer performs the return operation of the coin (operation of rotating the return lever), similarly to the above description, the temporary holding device performs the release operation, so that the holding state of the coin of five hundred yen is released, and the coin of five hundred yen rolls toward the first distributing device. This first distributing device distributes the coin of five hundred yen toward the second distributing device, and furthermore, the second distributing device (distributing device for distributing the coin to the coin box or the change outlet) distributes the coin of five hundred yen toward the change outlet, so that the coin of five hundred yen is returned to the change outlet.
Thus, the latter coin mechanism has such a structure where it returns the coin of five hundred yen inserted by the customer himself to the change outlet when the customer performs the return operation of the coin. As a result of this, even in the case where the coin discriminating device wrongly judges that a forged coin of five hundred yen is specie, the forged coin of five hundred yen returns to the customer as it is, and therefore, there is such a practical effect that the damage received when a forged coin of five hundred yen is inserted is decreased.
By the way, in the latter coin mechanism, when the customer performs the operation of buying a product, all coins of five hundred yen are introduced to the coin tube by the distributing operation of the first distributing device, and therefore, when this coin tube has already been filled, it is necessary to distribute the coin of five hundred yen to the coin box. Accordingly, it is necessary to provide another distributing device on the coin tube side besides the above described first distributing device.
Such another distributing device is usually provided at the upper part in the coin tube, and therefore, there has been such a problem that the number of coins to be contained in the coin tube is decreased. Furthermore, there has been such a problem that the coin tube must be large-sized corresponding to the providing of another distributing device, in order to solve the problem of decreasing of the number of coins to be contained.
Furthermore, it is required that the coin tube for five hundred yen can select either the setting of the number of filling or the setting of a small number. This setting of the number of filling is a setting performed for holding a large number of coins of five hundred yen that are paid as the change in the coin tube. On the other hand, the setting of a small number (for example, four) is a setting performed for decreasing the damage caused by the throwing-in of the forged coin of five hundred yen by reducing the return of the coin of five hundred yen of the large amount of money as much as possible. However, in the latter coin mechanism, the setting of a small number has been impossible since all coins of five hundred yen are introduced to the coin tube.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a coin mechanism in which the number of coins to be contained in the coin tube can be increased and furthermore, a small number of coins of the coin tube can be set, due to the above described problems of the prior art.
A first invention is a coin mechanism of a vending machine, including: a coin discriminating device for discriminating the kind of a inserted coin; a temporary holding device for temporarily holding a specified coin on a coin passage among coins discriminated by the above described coin discriminating device; a distributing device for distributing the coin held by the above described temporary holding device to a coin containing part or a change outlet; and control means for controlling the above described temporary holding device and the above described distributing device, in which the above described distributing device includes an upper distributing device for distributing the coin to a change outlet or a coin containing passage connecting with the above described coin containing part, and a lower distributing device for distributing the coin distributed to the above described coin containing passage to a coin tube or a coin box, and the above described control means can control the above described upper distributing device so that the inserted coin is distributed toward the above described change outlet when a coin return command is given and can control the above described upper distributing device so that the inserted coin is distributed toward the above described coin containing passage when a product buying command is given, and furthermore, the above described control means can control normally the above described lower distributing device so that the inserted coin is distributed toward the above described coin tube and can control the above described lower distributing device so that the inserted coin is distributed toward the above described coin box when a containing prohibition command to the above described coin tube is given.
According to the first invention, the coin whose holding is released from the temporary holding device is distributed to the change outlet, the coin box, or the coin tube at the former stage of entering the coin containing part. That is, it is unnecessary to provide a distributing device at a part of the coin tube like the prior art, and therefore, the number of coins to be contained in the coin tube is increased.
Furthermore, in a case where the number of coins to be contained in the coin tube is set to a small number, this setting can be realized by controlling the lower distributing device.
Furthermore, like a second invention, it is also possible that the coin to be temporarily held is a coin of five hundred yen that is the largest amount of money among the coins to be inserted the vending machine.
Furthermore, in the case where the coin mechanism is mounted to a vending machine on which no bill varidator is mounted, the coin of five hundred yen is unnecessary as the change. At the time of buying a canned drink of the price of one hundred and twenty yen, a case where one coin of five hundred yen is inserted, a case where two coins of one hundred yen are inserted, or a case where one coin of one hundred yen and one coin of fifty yen are inserted are considered, but in any case, it does not occur to use the coin of five hundred yen as the change. Furthermore, in the case a product of the price of five hundred yen or more is purchased, similarly, it does not occur to use the coin of five hundred yen as the change.
In such a case, it is also possible that a coin box containing command switch is provided like the third invention or the fourth invention and all coins of five hundred yen are contained in the coin box.
Furthermore, like the fifth invention or the sixth invention, it is also possible that the control means judges whether there is a bill varidator or not and the lower distributing device is controlled so that the coin of five hundred yen is contained in the coin box when no bill varidator is mounted.
The above described objects, other objects, features, and benefits of the present invention will be apparent by the following description and attached drawings.